


a heathen's touch

by TheBrokaryotes



Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mirror Sex, Power Play, Prompt Fill, what else even is there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:08:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25542634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBrokaryotes/pseuds/TheBrokaryotes
Summary: But the Dane’s body is warm, and his heart beats like every other. Alfred can think what he wants, can let this union they’ve formed be nothing more than a dark spot on an otherwise clean Christian record for the King of Wessex and his warlord Ealdorman. But he had asked to know his enemies, heathens, and Uhtred wants nothing more than to show him the truth—of himself, as much as all Danes—that his people’s prowess is no mere dip in the water; it is a headfirst dive.And with the way Alfred has been acting tonight, Uhtred is of a mind to baptize the king himself.
Relationships: Alfred the Great & Uhtred of Bebbanburg, Alfred the Great/Uhtred of Bebbanburg
Comments: 5
Kudos: 43
Collections: The Last Kingdom Fanfic Fest





	a heathen's touch

**Author's Note:**

> part of a combined fic effort with Maruru (Maruru Ships It), who's work _the cross that burns_ describes alfred's perspective of this scene. Please go check out her side of the story, it is amazing and beautiful and very interesting to write together!

It took longer than Uhtred had expected to grow used to life beneath the thumb of the throne of Wessex, but he had managed. Alfred’s mercurial tolerance of the Dane was to be measured by the day—Uhtred still had yet to learn the patterns of his actions which would garner the king’s tepid favor, or invite his quiet wrath. He had almost begun to believe there was no pattern, and that Alfred merely punished or rewarded him based on the wind, or whether or not his God had been speaking to him through prayer. But no, Alfred is smarter than that; he does nothing without a reason, even if that reason is miles ahead of anyone else’s sight. Uhtred’s especially.

All the same, the king had seemed more agitated with him lately. It is a subtle change—a sharpened tongue in conversation, a watchful eye when the Dane had yet to make a false move warranting one, a scathing look that raked along his form like a blade pulled fresh from a forge. All of it unprompted, as far as Uhtred knew, but then again, he tried his hardest never to dwell.

So when Alfred calls him into his writing room one evening, Uhtred keeps his head held high and his back straight on purpose. Either he is about to be scolded pointlessly for some escapade that somehow violated God’s divine plan, or Alfred is going to prattle on about England at length and Uhted’s sworn duty to protect it. Neither is desirable, so the Dane sets his mind to merely keeping his mouth shut.

Alfred is seated in a shroud of candlelight at his writing desk as Uhtred approaches, dismissing the guard who had escorted his invitee with a tight smile and a flick of his chin. The heavy metal doors shutting behind the Dane sound rather more the sealing of a tomb. 

“Uhtred,” the king deadpans in greeting, his eyes cast downward to his work. He appears, as always, more priest than king, the sleeves of his grey robes hanging loose from his wrists as he scrawls across a fresh sheet of parchment with a deft quill. When he finally peers up at Uhtred with those observant eyes of his, cast amber in the candlelight, Uhtred struggles to fight the tension seeping across his shoulders. 

“Lord King,” he replies flatly, glancing at the ink stains along Alfred’s fingertips to keep from returning that chilling gaze. Slowly, the king sets the quill down and pushes away from the desk, standing with a palm to his abdomen as the other braces upon the table.

“I’ve an assignment for you, if you’re willing,” Alfred states plainly, and Uhtred’s brow crinkles. He gets the sense that his complacency in the matter is of little concern—more than that, he cannot fathom what assignment worthy of his time the Lord might have.

“That depends on the assignment,” the Dane tests, clasping his hands together in front of himself. He did not come here merely to be sent off into the Mercian countryside on a scouting mission, nor fulfill whatever task it is Alfred believes him freely capable of. 

Alfred’s face remains almost the same, though Uhtred notices his eyes darken, flickering down to the Dane’s fidgeting hands before he turns away, stepping in front of the window to stare down through the weakening sunlight at the thinning bustle of the castle courtyard. He looks pensive—rarely is there a moment when evidence of his ceaseless mind is not written plain across his face.

“It is of a… personal sort,” he elaborates quietly, fingers twining behind his back as he glances over his shoulder to the floor beneath Uhtred’s feet. At that, Uhtred’s curiosity stirs; Alfred is not one to readily place privileged matters into the care of someone he so publicly distrusted.

“Lord?” he inflects. Alfred turns finally, his steps purposeful as he approaches Uhtred, halting a mere foot away. The look he fixes the Dane with is as unsettling up close as it was from afar, in a manner Uhtred cannot put a name to.

“I wish to know my enemies,” he admits, voice smooth and level like the flat of a sword. “The Danes. You yourself are a Dane, Uhtred, so you will help me in this aspect.”

Uhtred leans away on impulse, his gaze flitting to the king’s lips as he speaks. He doesn't much appreciate the insinuation that  _ he _ , sworn by oath and proven loyal time and time again, remains an enemy, despite all he has done for Wessex, for the Saxons. Alfred included.

“What would you want to know?” he replies hesitantly, already breaking his private vow to remain quiet. But the king had caught his attention, damn him, snaring Uhtred with curiosity yet again.

Alfred steps forward, and Uhtred feels his nostrils flare with the small breath he pulls to his lungs. The king’s eyes strike him, a spark on a flint shard, as do his words spoken smooth as honey. “I have heard tales of Danish prowess,” he lilts, purring over the last few syllables. Uhtred’s heart seizes for a fleeting second, the blood beneath his skin going icy. “But I’ve yet to witness it for myself.”

Alfred’s eyes are no longer on Uhtred’s, having dropped instead to his lips. His gaze is an iron brand, heavy and burning as it slides across them, and Uhtred fights not to blot them with his tongue. His own gaze flickers along the planes of Alfred’s stony expression for some kind of reprieve. None comes.

“You will teach me,” the king continues, chin tilting up and lashes fluttering along his cheeks, “of their… bodily weaknesses.”

Behind them, the candlelight flickers.

Understanding floods Uhtred’s mind and crashes against him with all the unstoppable force of a tidal wave. It seeps into every corner, every vessel in his blood, every facet of his being as he processes Alfred’s wolf of a request, wrapped in sheep’s clothes around his silver tongue. The Dane blinks, letting his eyes fall away from Alfred’s face to fix at a spot just above his head, and swallows roughly around his reply as it bubbles against the back of his throat. It’s a needless inquiry—he knows, and fears, the answer already.

“What…  _ weaknesses _ are of interest to you, Lord?”

Alfred’s lips pull tight into the smallest of smiles, adorned with amusement and mottled by a sultry hue that fits him just a bit too well.

“It is a matter of curiosity,” he explains, stepping back towards his desk and running two nimble fingers along the woodgrain. Uhtred’s gaze follows him like a hawk—or rather the mouse caught in the hawk’s sight. There’s a stir in his gut he’s no title for, familiar as it may be. It is out of place here, with Alfred as its agitator, though the warrior would be lying to himself if he claimed never to have felt it before.

It twists when the Lord turns, the heel of his hands braced against the table’s edge as he leans against it. “I find the subject of your people’s hedonistic practices to be… troublingly intriguing,” he says. In his eyes lies a dangerous invitation, the stormy blue of his irises stippled with a restrained lust Uhtred had not known him capable of. It lingers over the warrior’s body, sizing him up—more likely undressing him.

“You will sate this curiosity for me, Uhtred,” the king demands as he gracefully props himself upon the table, his knees parting and the fabric of his robe rucking at his hips. “You will do exactly as I tell you.”

Uhtred’s grip on his own wrist tightens as Alfred’s smile pulls a hair’s breadth wider.

“And I will watch.”

When Alfred beckons, it is not aloud. It is not a word spoken into reality, nor is it a flick of the chin or crook of the finger—it is a feeling, a gravitational pull, as steady as if the king had gripped the leather laces of Uhtred’s armor and pulled him forward himself. The Dane’s feet move without his permission, staggered with trepidation, with uncertainty. The air turns dreamlike, and Uhtred halts a mere step away from the perfectly-spaced niche of Alfred’s legs.

A voice in Uhted’s head screams out like a prey animal, fighting with his hand as he reaches out to ghost his palm up Alfred’s thigh, never quite making contact with the linen beneath. It fades to silence when Alfred’s hooded eyes peer up to his, silent and piercing as an arrow in the night.

“What exactly—” Uhtred whispers, mouth dry as he peeks his tongue across his lips, “— would you have me do?”

Alfred roams his face thoughtfully, though Uhtred is sure he had already something in mind. The king’s fingers curl around his belt buckle, drawing him that final step closer as he makes his orders known.

“Touch me.”

An unsteady breath fills Uhtred’s lungs as the overwhelming desire to  _ obey _ crushes against his chest. “Where, Lord?” he asks, a twitch away from snapping.

Alfred’s eyes go black, and Uhtred’s thoughts go with them. “Everywhere.”

The hand Uhtred had held over the king’s thigh clamps down upon it as their lips collid in a messy union. It’s wet, hot like hot had never been, searing down Uhtred’s spine and spreading across his body entire. He pulls a sweetened breath from Alfred’s mouth, feeling the Lord do the same to him as they vie for dominance amidst the chaos of their kiss, though it seems for all the world that the king is, for once, playing to lose.

Uhtred can't restrain the groan that slides from his throat when Alfred reaches up to tug at the ratted braids woven near his nape, the sting of it more an instigation than a detraction. The Dane slides his tongue hungrily along the king’s bottom lip, only for it to slip from his touch as Alfred yanks his head roughly backwards, jarring him out of their kiss. The Lord is the picture of sin with his cheeks flushed pink like that, his lips gone slick and red from Uhtred’s ministrations as they tick up into a crenulated grin.

“Not so fast,” he says, and a hot flash of irritation whips across Uhtred’s vision. Had he not asked for this? Was this not the very thing he'd ordered Uhtred to do?

Before the Dane can gather enough breath in his lungs to protest, Alfred is slipping from the table to his feet, gliding like water from beneath Uhtred’s weight to float across the room towards the adjacent door to his bedchamber. He pauses with a hand upon the knob, dark eyes cast back upon Uhtred’s own, burning with anticipation, as he crooks one slender finger in the warrior’s direction.

“Follow,” he orders. Uhtred doesn't need to be told twice.

The room is as quiet as the one that had preceded it, nothing but the sound of Uhtred’s heartbeat in his ears and the crackling energy between the two of them to fill the silent space. The warrior struggles to place his eyes anywhere other than Alfred, attempting vainly to focus elsewhere so as to avoid staring. He spies a full length mirror situated oddly at the far end of the bed corner, facing the center of the mattress. Alfred is already unbuttoning the top clasps of his robe as he makes for the bed, that same dangerous invitation written across his face as he casts a glance over his shoulder.

_ This man is going to eat you alive _ .

The thought is drowned out handily by the simultaneous crashing realization of exactly  _ how far  _ the king had plotted for this night to go. Uhtred's eyes flit from him to the mirror and back again before Alfred snaps him back to reality with his silk-strung voice.

“Touch me,” he’s ordering again, shrugging off his robe and letting it pool at his feet. Heat shocks Uhtred’s core as he drinks in the sight of the king’s half-bare figure, donning none of the frailty he would have expected. He is lean, certainly, but it is a leanness lined with sinew, the quiet power he’s come to expect from a king such as Alfred hidden beneath a thin frame. The iron cross round Alfred’s neck dangles loosely on its black cord, swaying just above his naval, and it flashes in Uhtred’s eyes as if baiting him, daring him to cross the gap and defile its bearer with a heathen’s touch.

For a moment, Uhtred’s gaze stumbles to the mirror once more, bearing the reflection of Alfred’s back and taut shoulders in its silver face. The king’s words ring clear in his mind— _ you will do exactly as I tell you. And I will watch. _

Uhtred’s nostrils flare.  _ This bastard thinks of everything. _

Amidst his exasperation, the very thought of Alfred working through this moment before it had even transpired, deliberating over it and determining how exactly he wanted it to go, makes Uhtred’s gut clench. He wonders if Alfred took into account just how much the Dane enjoys being seen, being witnessed. That joy had never made it to the bedroom before, and certainly never to the king, but, knowing Alfred and his everworking mind, he’d merely read Uhtred’s manner like a book, memorizing every word.

The hesitation that had laced Uhtred’s steps before dissolves with an unbridled rush of want, surging him forward to crush his body against Alfred’s and collide their mouths in a chaotic assortment of lips and teeth. He drags skittish palms down the warm firmness of Alfred’s waist and hips, fingers reaching the pliant swell of the Lord’s ass and squeezing possessively—he’d been instructed only to touch, but he had every intention to  _ claim. _

The Dane is not sure when they stumble into the bed, nor how he finds himself straddling Alfred, gathering all the restraint he can muster to not grind down onto his hips with animalistic intent. What he  _ is _ sure of is his vexation with the layers still stuck between them, the clammy cotton around Alfred’s hips which he tugs at adamantly before Alfred stills his roaming hands with a touch of his fingertips to Uhtred’s wrist. His earlier command of obedience resounds in Uhtred’s mind once more, warring with the near-unbearable desire to override, until Alfred tugs smoothly on the drawstring of his breeches and fixes Uhtred with expectancy. 

Taking the hint, the Dane slips his thumb beneath the band and pulls, ridding Alfred of his constraints and pausing once he’d tossed the offending garment aside to admire his discovery.

Alfred’s cock is already half-hard as it bobs against his thigh, adorned with a crown of black curls at its base. They’ve the feel of downy feathers as Uhtred’s fingertips brush across them, nail grazing up the sensitive skin of the king’s shaft. Alfred sucks in a short breath, gliding his hips deftly up to meet the contact of Uhtred’s hand before he’s fisting his own in the Dane’s hair once more to draw him back in forcibly.

Keeping true to form, Uhtred lets his touch roam along every inch of Alfred’s exposed flesh as he dips his head down to the king’s neck to kiss roughly along his pulse point. He drags a sharpened cuspid across the bob in Alfred’s throat and feels him arch upwards, twitching at the foreign sensation of the king’s cock pressed flush against his inner thigh. It’s sinfully delightful, in the most wicked sense, to know that Alfred’s arousal is for him.

A groan, indiscernible in origin from Uhtred’s mouth, is muffled against the pale stretch of Alfred’s throat which he blots with small bruises and possessive nips. As he turns his head, his hazy eyes glimpse themselves, reflected in the mirror. He is startled first by the  _ hunger _ roiling in them, near too dark to be recognizable as his own, but they are not what keep his attention—no, it is  _ Alfred’s _ eyes, staring back at him through the silver surface, cheeks flushed in dewy rose and his lips the hue of glacé cherries. Uhtred watches as the king’s lashes flutter in time with a ragged sigh, torn from the king’s throat when the Dane suckles at the soft spot beneath his jaw.

“You burn,” Alfred rasps, the declaration vibrating under Uhtred’s teeth and, as if it were the incantation of a spell, the Dane feels his skin flare hotter still, burning from the inside out like sacred flame. Seeing Alfred speak in the mirror does nothing to quell it, though the sudden sharp pinch of the Lord’s fingers through his hair, wrenching his head up and dizzying his vision, certainly gives it some pause.

Uhtred hisses, no longer possessing the wherewithal to be surprised at the primality of it, looking now to Alfred beneath him rather than through their reflection. His jaw clenches, shoulders tense as confusion and want battle in his belly. His mouth feels strangely empty without Alfred’s flesh beneath it to worship, to devour—what is it about the king that lures the wild animal in the Dane out of its cage?

As he reels, Alfred lurches upward, nimble tongue swiping across his warrior’s bottom lip, sucking it between his front teeth before letting it go to snap back into place. Uhtred whines, chasing the contact as it recedes only for the searing sting of Alfred’s hand to yank roughly on his hair, locking him in place like a chained dog.

“Shall I blindfold you?” Alfred whispers, the polish in his voice unmarred by the heftiness of his breath, drawn swiftly from Uhtred’s mouth as he leans up again to tease the Dane with his tongue. “Would that provide an incentive to obey my orders, perhaps?”

Uhtred’s whine turns to a growl, fingers curling where they grip tight at the king’s hips as his nails press reddened crescents into unmarked skin. Alfred snatches his head back again, pouring his last words against the exposed angle of Uhtred’s jaw and punctuating them with a graze of his incisor.

“I commanded you to touch me,” he hisses, lips branding in flame where they glide along the bob in Uhtred’s throat, “yet no such permission was granted for you to spectate. You will keep your eyes where they belong, or you will  _ lose _ them.”

It’s not the breed of threat that should be anything but menacing, but it sends an exhilarated shiver down Uhtred’s spine all the same, straight to his neglected cock. A sawtooth smile twists at the corners of his lips; Alfred wanted to watch, not to be seen. How agreeable, then, that the Dane’s own desires ran so perfectly parallel.

“Yes, Lord,” he purrs, and when he brings his mouth to Alfred’s neck again, he is careful to keep his eyes closed, focusing instead on the salty taste under his tongue and the twin burn of Alfred’s eyes upon him through the mirror.

It isn’t long before the king grows restless, tugging at the fabric on Uhtred’s shoulders and canting upwards with growing frequency. “ _ More, _ Uhtred,” he bids heatedly when the Dane twirls his tongue around a pert nipple, arcing in fluid motion with Alfred’s body as it spurs upwards. The layer of pure want in his voice is as undeniable as it is intoxicating, and Uhtred is certain that measly kisses and teasing ministrations will no longer be sufficient if he is to continue to keep his word. It’s almost disappointing—he quite enjoys the vigor that comes with feeling the most powerful man in the kingdom writhe beneath the labor of his heathenous mouth.

Yet he obeys, branding Alfred’s chest with a final searing kiss before sitting up on his knees. His lips part in inquiry—admittedly, he is not so adept at these sorts of escapades as he is with others, but he has enough experience to know what comes next—and Alfred answers before the question even leaves the Dane’s mouth.

“The drawer,” he pants, gesturing with a tilt of his chin to the nightstand by the headboard, and Uhtred’s gut clenches with understanding and anticipation.

He detaches from the king, ignoring the sorrowful lack of warmth against his body as he rummages around the designated drawer, fingers closing around the vial once he locates it, not bothering to close the container as he turns back towards Alfred and nearly lets the glass vessel slip from his grasp.

Alfred is shifted onto his stomach now, his head turned towards the mirror still as he rests it in the crook of one arm. His other hand snakes under his body, and Uhtred spies where it disappears beneath his hip, fingers no doubt wrapped securely around his cock. The arousal that dips low in Uhtred’s core at the sight is like a punch to the stomach, stunning him as he drinks in the frankly sacreligious image of the Saxon king, prone and flush on his belly like an alehouse whore.

“ _ Now _ , Uhtred,” the Dane hears Alfred utter between groans, catching his gaze in the mirror once more and seeing the irritation in his tone reflected in his stormy eyes—if his intent had been unclear at any point, it now stands naked in the midsummer sun.

Uhtred has never stripped so quickly in his life, nearly ripping his shirt as he heaves it off over his shoulders and discarding his breeches in similar fashion when they bunch at his feet with a single swift kick. He returns diligently at Alfred’s behest, gripping at his ankles where they had hooked together and pulling them apart to settle between the king’s thighs once more. He wastes no time in uncorking the vial of oil, spilling it generously across his fingertips before dipping them down between Alfred’s cheeks.

The king tightens on impulse, and Uhtred leans over his back to kiss soothingly between his shoulder blades, thumbing along the red line of a scratch he’d left earlier as he presses his middle finger against Alfred’s entrance. It’s overwhelming, the salacious aura of it all making Uhtred’s body shudder and his cock twitch at the thought of how it would feel to soon be sheathed inside that ardent heat.

Alfred’s spine bows in a perfect curve with Uhtred’s intrusion, the planar muscles of his back shifting and tensing like the roiling surface of the sea at high tide. It is Uhtred who deigns to sail, pliant and flexible with every unsteady rock, every thrashing wave that threatens to knock him overboard—he crooks his finger, watches the king’s body entire alight with an electric pulse that flickers from the base of his spine all the way to the white peaks of his tightening knuckles on the crimped bedsheets. A trail of goosebumps shudders in its wake, their prickle mollified with a brush of the Dane’s lips over Alfred’s flushed shoulder.

It’s a rhythm, a push and pull—Alfred rocks backwards in pursuit of Uhtred’s touch, and the Dane responds with torturous clemency, too lost in the satisfaction of seeing the man who for so long had forced him to his knees, now upturned and on display for his eyes only. What eye had Alfred perused him with? What sacrilegious urges had Uhtred stirred deep within the king to bring him here? Perhaps it was another game of sorts, the sort that Alfred seems so fond of—cerebral and meticulous, never a false move made or an improper hand played. Much like God, Uhtred supposes, the bastard’s ways are not his own, and his plans are ineffable.

“Fuck me, Uhtred,” Alfred utters, so quietly the warrior can hardly parse it for the synchronized sibilations of their labored breath, and all at once his image of the king’s divinity crumbles as the sins of his mind and flesh make themselves known. The demand burrows itself square in Uhtred’s chest, flying down to his core like a skittish animal. It’s one he’s heard before, barked or whined or moaned from more than a few he’s had beneath him. But it rolls off Alfred’s tongue like water off the scintillating feathers of a waterfowl, natural and easy. It cuffs neatly across his teeth, lip curling by the end of it as Uhtred does the same with his fingers again, if for no other reason than to hear it once more poured from his lips.

Uhtred’s wish—his prayer, perhaps—is answered with surprising haste, prefixed with a lewd moan and punctuated by Alfred’s hand, thrashing around to grip securely around Uhtred’s wrist, both a warning and a decree.

“ _ Fuck me. _ ”

Let it never be said that Uhtred of the Danes is not a keeper of his promises. That when the Saxon King gave an order, he did obey. It is not the kind of command beseeching a third iteration, for when it slinks from Alfred’s mouth, all bared fangs and vixen-like prowl, Uhtred’s vision clouds at the fringes, a sharp breath singing against the roof of his mouth as he pulls his fingers from Alfred and quickly shifts to align their hips.

A shiver wracks the two of them in unison as Uhtred’s cock brushes against the perfect swell of Alfred’s ass, nestling in the valley of it as if tailor-fitted. The Dane rocks forward, watching it slide across oiled skin and slicking with excess as his hands ghost parallel down Alfred’s flank and thighs, guiding them to hook securely around his waist. Settled, the king makes a noise of urgency, tilting back against the steady pressure of Uhtred behind him, pleading without further voice.

Uhtred does not need to look to know that he is being watched—judged. He feels the heat of Alfred’s eyes, has felt it since the moment they began. This is the moment, of truth blissful or otherwise, the crux of the story, as it were.

_ And I will watch. _ Then, it would be best to put on a good show.

Silence wraps around the mismatched pair as Uhtred curls his hand beneath the divot of Alfred’s hip, the other directing his cock steadfast and sure into Alfred’s entrance. It is not an easy breach—certainly Alfred has never had another like this. It is tight, constricting, in every way different from the snug fit of the Dane’s fingers. He keeps his pace slow, his eyes sentinels and his heartbeat clamorous in his ears as he listens to every breath, every whimper and quiet keen. Leaning down, he weaves uneven patterns of kisses and soft bites, interspersed with his own low moans, down the center of Alfred’s spine, coaxing him through until, finally, the warrior is fully seated.

There’s no comparison; what to compare it to but to itself? It is heat, uncanny and immeasurable, compact and passion-woven at every soft curve. Uhtred can exercise restraint on the battlefield easier than he can now, his limbs trembling with the barely bridled desire to rut like a savage into the king and hear him cry his pleasure to the heavens—that was his given order, after all. But he keeps still, awaiting Alfred’s cue proper, assuaging himself with a nip against the soft of the king’s nape in the interim.

The warrior’s hesitation, it seems, does not go unnoticed, nor unpunished; Alfred fixes a fiend’s eye upon Uhtred’s twin in the mirror, though the husky acerbity of his words are for the Dane’s true self alone.

“When I give you a command,” he utters hoarsely, the gritty undertow of his voice vibrating at every point of contact between them, “I expect it to be obeyed. Or is that not what your Dane brethren have taught you? I requested for you to teach me of them and so you shall, lest you be found lacking by your king.”

Uhtred’s brow knits, the makings of a growl rising in his throat. Despite everything, Alfred still holds his crown up high over his head and the Dane himself at arm’s length, just enough so as to stay out of reach. Alfred had come to him with this, had practically  _ begged _ him under the ramshackle guise of commandment for it, and yet his Saxon pride still barks loud and clear his perceived inferiority of Uhtred, his usefulness and his utility as a means to an end.

But the Dane’s body is warm, and his heart beats like every other. Alfred can think what he wants, can let this union they’ve formed be nothing more than a dark spot on an otherwise clean Christian record for the King of Wessex and his warlord Ealdorman. But he had asked for schooling, to know his enemies, the heathens, and Uhtred wants nothing more than to show him the truth—of himself, as much as all Danes—that his people’s prowess is no mere dip in the water; it is a headfirst dive.

And with the way Alfred has been acting tonight, Uhtred is of a mind to baptize the king himself.

“Yes, Lord,” the warrior whispers in Alfred’s ear, his palms bracing beneath the king’s chest and his back curling as he thrusts his hips forward. The synchronous groan pulled from his mouth and the king’s alike is a reverie, and Uhtred sits up and repeats the motion again if only to hear it once more. Fire licks at his thighs where Alfred’s come in contact, sticky already with sweat and gripping tight along his hips. The pull of friction with every run of flesh over flesh is staggering, stilted with their first few arrhythmic drags until they find their stride together, the Dane’s broad palm spanned over the small of Alfred’s back to hold him steady as he fucks into him with all the passion and devotion deserving of a king. 

Sinner he is, Uhtred cannot help but give in to temptation—amidst the canting of his hips, the heavy aspirations and the marveling at the way Alfred’s body rocks against his own, the warrior deigns to send a flickering glance to their reflections, against his king’s orders. His own eyes stare back at him for a moment, hooded and brimming with a wild lust, before tracing along their tandem motion—his thighs rising to meet the underside of Alfred’s with every quick thrust; the dig of his fingers into the pale of the king’s hip; the gentle ripple of energy igniting at their cores and skimming along their flush-tinted skin, rebounding in a constant cycle. It is beauty in motion, redoubling the heady ardor already coursing through Uhtred’s veins.

A smile creeps up his parted lips, one both of amusement and prurient admiration, as he turns back to the real body beneath him, leaning forward to run his teeth against the thrumming heat of Alfred’s shoulder.

“You said you wanted to watch,” he lilts breathlessly, tongue darting between two delicate freckles just below the king’s collar as he pitches his hips sharply upward and turns his head again to catch his eyes in the mirror. “So tell me—how does it look?”

Alfred goes rigid, a barely-muffled cry against the bedsheets escaping his kiss-bruised lips as he bucks backwards into Uhtred’s brutal pace, hellbent for more. “You— _ ah _ —you are not the one… to be asking  _ questions, oh God—! _ ”

The Dane gives no quarter, no line for the king to grasp at as he sits up, gripping tightly at the red-lined flesh of Alfred’s thighs and driving into him with equal parts force and speed. It’s a filthy display, blurring Uhtred’s vision and igniting his body from toe to tip—were it anyone else but the two of them staring back at him, he may even begin to feel something akin to shame.

But then the king slackens, his fixed shoulders slumping forward as his cheek presses flat to the bed. The warrior watches in awe as his eyes roll back into his head, lashes fluttering like crow feathers across his sweat-dewed cheeks in a look Uhtred has seen more times than he can count, but never like this. Never on a king. Never on Alfred.

Arousal coils at Uhtred’s gut as he is certain it does in the Lord’s, snared taut down his spine and snapping with all the power of a loosed arrow as he cries out wantonly against the king’s nape and spills over inside his unyielding heat. His climax cuts through him like jagged glass, aching with every drum of his heart and jarring gasp sucked into his lungs. Quivering, he seals the last few pulses of euphoria in deliberate kisses against Alfred’s shoulders, releasing his vice grip on the king’s thighs and instead smoothing his calloused palms beneath Alfred’s belly, sticky with perspiration and the Lord’s own release.

When they separate, it is unceremonious, Uhtred detaching himself from Alfred to spread out beside him on his back, staring with unfocused eyes at the high ceiling of the royal bedchambers. They flutter closed as he works his breathing back to normal, the exquisite rush in his veins trickling down to a tepid drip of afterglow.

Alfred’s weight shifts, and Uhtred blinks his eyes open again to find the king rising from the bed on wobbling legs, bending to recover his clothes from the floor and slipping them back on without a word. A chasm widens in Uhtred’s chest, filled quite suddenly with the all-too familiar dread that frequently follows moments like this one.

“This will not leave this room,” the king decrees as he tugs his robe over his shoulders, clasping the first few buttons as his eyes catch Uhtred’s, blue on blue, firm to soft, and the Dane fights to look away. Alfred had voiced what he already knew to be true, a sentiment he shared for many reasons, not the least among them being his own pride.

Still, despite the years of animosity between the two of them, something had shifted. Uhtred feels it like a change in the wind, ruffling beneath his ribs and tickling with the queer desire for  _ more _ . Curiosity, maybe, at what more the king had lurking in that shadowy mind of his. Or perhaps he had merely become addicted in such a short span to the new attention paid to him by one who had never given him a second glance. 

Uhtred quells it quickly, tucking it away where it belongs, far from thought or fretting. “I… understand, Lord,” he says simply, rising from the bed to dress himself and make quickly for the door. His welcome had been stayed, his task fulfilled.

“I did not say you could leave yet.”

Uhtred freezes with his hand hovering just above the woodgrain of the door, his stomach flipping in a combined flurry of confusion and anticipation. Turning, he spots Alfred striding towards him, hands behind his back as he slips between Uhtred and the door. 

“It would seem,” he whispers, eyes dropping to Uhtred’s mouth, expression unreadable. “that I have much to learn yet. If you are, perchance, interested in becoming a tutor.” 

Uhtred’s eyes trace the line of Alfred’s neck, his collar hiding the worst of the bruises the Dane had left there but failing to conceal them in their entirety. He watches Alfred pluck at the pendant, tucking it against his palm as he meets Uhtred’s steady gaze with query in his eyes and on his lips.

It would not be written that on this day, Uhtred of Bebbanburg did visit the king of Wessex in his private chambers. There would be no retelling of their saga within anything but the walls surrounding them now, or in the sanctity of their own minds. It would be another on the long list of secrets kept privy to the annals of history, lost moments flitting silently into obscurity as they pass. All the same, it would not be written that the Dane Slayer was a breaker of oaths, for he was bound by word and fate alike to the Saxon Lord—now too, it seems, by heart, for his skips at the notion Alfred lays before him, and he smiles gently.

“As you wish, Lord.”

**Author's Note:**

> fellas, is it gay


End file.
